Residents of Terrace Hall spent the holiday weekend moving belongings to their new room assignments.

Possible future uses for the Terrace site include a parking lot or new building, said David Creamer, vice president of administration.

“I intend to recommend to the Broad of Trustees at their Jan. 31 meeting that Terrace be demolished and a surface parking lot be located on the site,” he said. “It could be used for other purposes at some point in the future should the need for a building arise.”

The main focus has been on getting students out of Terrace and getting the building closed, said Betsy Joseph, Residence Services Director.

“I have had conversations with the University Architect’s Office and Campus Environment and Operations,” she said. “Once we get all students out of there, then we will be turning off utilities and doing the types of things we need to do if the building’s not occupied.”

To prepare for Terrace to go off-line, residents were required to go online.

Students who wanted to make room changes originally had to go see their hall directors to make changes, which resulted in standing in long lines, said T.J. Logan, assistant director of residence services.

“A lot of students got frustrated,” he said. “Taking a cue from that, we made an online process.”

The online process made it possible for students to view the rooms available and then make a selection instantly.

“We didn’t want them to have to physically go anywhere,” Logan said. “We wanted them to do it at their convenience – sign in using their FlashLine username and password to make changes.”

The university is looking into possible options to dispose of the remaining furniture that cannot be recycled to other areas.

“The University Architect’s Office is investigating the possibility of going into a relationship with a company that would basically sell the remaining furniture,” Joseph said. “Then the university would get a percentage of those costs and that would be much better financially then trying to dispose of it.”

“I anticipate that we will take some desks and some chairs and we’ll take good mattresses and drapes that we can reuse in other areas,” she said.

Past residents of Terrace are sad to see it close.

For Sean Creegan, a sophomore business management major, living in Terrace during the fall semester is where he built his friendships.

“The first year is when you start to build your friendships and now we have to start over somewhere else,” Creegan said.

Brian Cushion, a senior psychology major and 2002-2003 resident of Terrace, said the residence hall is where he met his best friends in college.

“That would be hard to move halfway into the school year,” Cushion said. “That would have killed us because second semester is when you really become close.”

More information on the Terrace move-out process can be found at www.res.kent.net.

Contact news correspondent Lisa Moore at [email protected].